The Taxi Driver Test
A couple of times over the last week I’ve spoken to people about the Taxi Driver Test: when you get a cab and the driver asks what you do and you tell him you work in advertising, we all know what happens next:
‘What have you done that I’ve seen?’
A bittersweet position to be in. After all, you can do a lot of excellent work for smaller clients, for digital campaigns not aimed at taxi drivers, for press ads that appeared only in Bristol yet win every award in the business, for massive pitch wins etc. But if you haven’t done the one your cabbie likes, you’re fucked. And what are the chances of pulling that one off? Pretty darn low, I’d say.
Now, that may be something to be ashamed of; after all, what we’d all like to do is a piece of work that crosses over into popular culture, but the vast majority of what the vast majority of us produce does not fall into that category.
And so we have the slightly awkward chat with the cabbie that ends with the uncomfortable silence and you trying to turn the intercom off as subtly as possible.
Anyway, here’s a nice bit of film that addresses exactly that issue:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKROVI_S_Ik
(Thanks, J.)
Ben,
Could you also post this. Just because Stewart Lee doesn’t get enough kudos AND it fits in to awkward cab conversations. And because its Monday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n-UGQcG3Jw
The most terrifying thing is the quality of ads that people remember. ‘Did you work on that BMW Joy commercial? I love that ad, it’s really clever.’ Honestly, someone once said that to me. We don’t speak any more.
I just lie about it. Especially if it’s to impress women. Deep down, they don’t really care that I didn’t do Surfer/Old Spice/Blackcurrent Tango/the Meercat thing that isn’t that good. They just want to have a reason to laugh at my lame jokes. I once told a Rachel Weisz lookalike that I did an award-winning print ad where a brain looked like a walnut. It was pathetic to watch. The rejection was worse that C2Ds murdering your script in a stale Watford basement.
I now qualify my job admission by saying “not the noblest of professions I admit.” Hopefully to head off the diatribe I usually get.
My favourite response when dealing with someone who thinks advertising is immoral because it puts a fake gloss on things and tricks people into buying stuff they wouldn’t usually buy:
“Well you’re wearing make-up and a wonder bra aren’t you?”
User warning: It only works on women and won’t get you laid.
people not in advertising don’t think about it in such personal terms.
oh you work in advertising? what have you done that i would’ve seen?
what they’re really asking is what has your agency done?
they don’t discriminate.
so if you work at amv you can say you do the guinness advertising. if you actually did write surfer, for example,, then they wouldn’t think you were anymore amazing than the account man who took minutes in the pre-prod.
That’s all well and good, but what the f**k do i say to the taxi driver?
Leika. Tell that to Tom and Walt
or this one. someone asks what you do. you tell them advertising. they ask if you’ve done anything they might know. you tell them. and then they go “No. you didn’t do that”. you can’t win.
Vinny, this is one conversation I don’t think you’ve ever struggled with.
Yeah Vinny, stay out of our Loser chat. And I’m sorry man, I once said I did Whassup. She didn’t believe me either. Shame really, she was wife material. Someone else’s maybe, but there was a connection there.
Danny, how about….
“shut the f**ck up you daft cockney w*nker”
Love it. I know what to say now when I meet a gynaecologist at a party.
Turns out BMW ads aren’t all bad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEvpnKRLDO4&feature=player_embedded
Bring on the wall!
I get more of a kick knowing people know my work than by getting peer recognition. It seems to make my time on earth a little more valuable.
Making a few pricks happy for the sake of a pay rise just doesn’t give me the same cosy feeling that a scouser telling me my ad made them laugh/smile/cry/steal gives me.
Luckily I’ve done loads and loads of famous as fuck ads that taxi drivers love. They usually let me off with the fare and ask me for my autograph.
A taxi driver told me he was in one of the Ministry of Sound, ‘Use your Vote. You know he’ll use his’ ads a few years ago. He was in the Praise God for Aids execution. Won loads of awards apparently.
A taxi driver once asked me to ‘sought him a job out in advertising.’
Said he was ‘well good at coming up with ideas and that’.
He then proceeded to tell me how he could make the ads on TV better.
Then asked me what I thought…
A cab driver once told me he used to be the CD at a top agency. And preferred being a cab driver.
Just for a bit of fun Ben, you should do a post and have a portfolio off, see who has good ones… Who is willing to post there’s or if people don’t want to play you can pretty much guess the names and put them up anyway, I’m not brave enough wonder if anyone else is?
Saying you work in advertising, whether it’s true, is hardly feckin creative now is it?
“I used to be a concorde pilot but now I fly shit for Ryanair. Where do I go? Every feckin where. Where do you wanna go?”
@Dull it’s THEIR’S who halfwit.